$9,250.00 Per Song
Rockadelic
Out Digging 13,993 Posts
Good thing she didn't downlaod Boscoe or else the fine may have been higher....The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $222,000 in damages against her. Jurors ordered Jammie Thomas, 30, to pay the six record companies that sued her $9,250 for each of 24 songs they focused on in the case. They had alleged she shared 1,702 songs online in violation of their copyrights. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/04/national/main3330186.shtml
Comments
I don't see how the damages are figured here.
By my estimate, she should have owed all of around $44 or so.
Can you say "scapegoat?"
"When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Making "a copy" of a purchased song is just "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy',"
right..."steals just one copy"....from himself....for himself....
Of course, the exact mathematics are probably lost on a young, single, and now bankrupt mother.
This is the best possible news for the RIAA, which has now established a legal precedent affixed to a concrete number.
Think about it: A $222,000 fine for illegally downloading and sharing what amounts to 2/2.5 albums.
The perversion of the original intent of copyright laws continues. I suppose that the music industry won't have to cut extra firewood for the long, hard L.A. winter. Who amongst the Big 4 needs to solve the question of lost music sales and the issue of peddling ignoble art when they can simply sue their own potential consumers?
So you agree with the ruling?
Seriously....how the hell did you deduct this??
I'm just sayin' it like I see it.
Your phrasing seemed to suggest agreement to me.
If not, then what is your feeling on this ruling
as far as the fairness and legitimacy of it?
As Luck correctly put it.....this is a good day for the RIAA.
The Music Industry is in dire straits and is grasping for precedent so they can attempt to return to their glory days of the 80's when they made everyone replace their LP collections with CD's.
As a label owner I can understand how free downloading "could" effect the business end of the Music "Biz".
Since I don't up/download any music it's hard for me to get passionate about the issue.
Although I am interested in seeing how this whole effort by the RIAA plays out.
Must be my Brooklyn/Texas accent.
Obviously this is an attempt to instill fear in the music consumer... download, and you will pay exorbitant fines. Totally ridiculous, their is no sound logic to someone having to pay 200k for some shit crap useless 100kps mp3s. And bringing lawsuits against 10 year olds for illegal downloading? There needs to be a class-action lawsuit against the RIAA for privacy violations here, fuck a constitutional amendment.
Seriously.
Fuckin' lame.
The best part is... They had a rep from Best Buy there, stating that the plaintiff was a very good customer when it came to buying CD's. Hundreds in fact.
I'm guessing she never buys a CD again.
The "biz" just got awarded the equal of purchasing 15,000 CD's.
I'm sure they're not sweating losing her as a customer.
I wonder what would happen if if the Big 4 got together to sue each and every past downloader/file sharer for every song downloaded/shared on every major download site (KaZaA, Napster, Limewire, Grokster, et al) in one gigantic class-action lawsuit. Based on this new legal precedent, the plantiffs could easily shut down all their new music production for years and still see a tenfold profit - and this, before the subtraction of new production and contract expenses. And, hey - anyone that was legally downloading/sharing music on these sites would need to spend years of costly litigation to prove it, leaving even innocent victims in debt to these companies or their attornies. Settlements totalling in the multiple bilions would ensue. This would be perfectly legal and would actually make more sense than randomly suing octogenarians, single mothers, and pre-teens. From an economic standpoint, it's really free money for the music industry. They'd be stupid not to do it.
Don't think that this hasn't been considered.
It'll probably get downgraded or dismissed. Nevertheless, it's still an option in principle. Based on the numbers established in this case, the music litigation business could potentially become one of the most profitable American business ventures ever.
Great. It might pay their legal costs. Lets see them collect it from a single native american mother. I'm guessing they won't be getting it all in one lump sum.
What a great way to make money!!!
And with this, are you guys still downloading? Rather, should you be worried about downloading?
As with most cases brought upon people by the RIAA and Big Music, this particular woman was accused of SHARING her music. I have only heard of a few cases in which folks were sued for downloading without sharing their music. The Industry seems content to sue random file sharers 3-5 years after their alleged infraction.
The odds of you being sued seem slim...almost like winning the lottery. But I guess it sends out a loud message, "We'll slam you for 200 thousand" if that's what it takes to intimidate you.
[goon bait]...just like the death penalty as a deterrent to crime.[/goon bait]
It does give me seconds thoughts about downloading 50cent's new album....maybe i'm being too scared though.
also, fuck a jury...people are idiots.
Sony already tried that one, remember? Putting non-removable spyware and other hidden software onto people's computers via audio CDs, which resulted in some class action lawsuits from consumers, a fast climb down, and a big apology.
Some reports suggest that big downloaders also buy up to 40% more legitimate music than most people, being committed music fans. That said, it seems they also steal more music than most, too.
they are attempting to put the fear into downloaders which makes sense to me, Rightly or wrongly.
She chose to fight the case rather than accepting a lesser fine, of reputedly a few thousand dollars
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34209/118/
Personally I think the fine should relate to the fact she downloaded Hysteria by Def Leppard than for file sharing.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/200...on-tuesday.html
When its a faceless megacorp people are up in arms at their bullyboy practices (perhaps rightly so) but when its someone closer to them, at the level of a lot of the record labels that people on here own or are part of then I suspect peoples reactions may well be different. It won't ever be the top boys at these companies taking the hit of reduced sales, it will be the low level staff who are often in it for music rather than business reasons and use their income to subsidise their own labels / bands etc.
I don't actually know how I feel about the decision.